Greek Week

Greek Week returns with a revamped team focus while continuing to strive for philanthropic excellence for all involved.

Greek week will be held the week after spring break, March 18-23 with the exception of the banner competition.

The competitions for Greek Week started yesterday with the Spring Break Banner Competition.

The Spring Break Banner competition was held in conjunction with GAMMA (Greeks Advocating the Mature Management of Alcohol), to promote a safe spring break.

Each Greek chapter made a spring break themed banner, on a queen sized or smaller sheet, and used their creativity to promote sun safety tips, safe driving, responsible alcohol consumption and other general guidelines for a safe spring break.

Alpha Tau Omega took first in the fraternity division; following was Farmhouse in second and third was Lambda Chi Alpha.

Alpha Delta Pi was first place in the sorority division, second was Chi Omega and Alpha Gamma Delta was third.

Other competitions include a service day where the Greek organizations will be doing acts of community service in the surrounding areas, a faculty progressive dinner, a tailgate grill off and bakeoff, the Overtime Challenge, which is a flag football tournament, quarter wars, the blood drive, Greek Sing, volleyball, National PanHellenic Day and the infamous Greek Games.

The only new events this year are the faculty progressive dinner, the tailgate grill off, bakeoff and quarter wars.

The Faculty Appreciation Progressive Dinner is being held as a way for the Greek community to thank them for all of their hard work. One side of Sorority Hill will serve Mexican style cuisine and the other side will serve Italian style cuisine.

Starting from the outside, faculty will move toward the middle of the hill starting with appetizers then moving to the entrée and dessert.

Teams must work together to purchase the supplies, cook and serve the food.

“Last year, our main philanthropy was the International Children’s Heart Foundation,” said Katy Kitto, former Alpha Delta Pi president and senior general business major from Panama City, Fla. “Greek Week 2012 raised $8,000 toward the philanthropy and this year, we hope to raise at least $10,000 to give to the Troy Miracle League and the park they are building. We will also be donating proceeds to Relay for Life, and The Boys and Girls Club of Troy.”

Greek society has expressed in various outlets that they want to give back to the community directly and plan to do that through their donations to The Boys and Girls Club and Troy Miracle League.

The Greek Week shirts that will be worn by the organizations serve a special purpose.

They will be worn at the Greek Games as a sign of unity, and the money used to buy the shirts will help benefit the philanthropies of each organization.

“I believe it’s ok for Greeks to have their own week because we all work very hard within our organizations, on campus and in the community,” Kitto said. “We each have our own philanthropy event every semester to support those philanthropies and this week allows us to come together and work for three incredible causes, allowing the strengths of every chapter to shine through to raise the most amount of money possible for the groups. It’s a competition, but at the end of the day we are all working toward the same goal.”

With Kitto’s role, she is in charge of the Facebook and Twitter pages as well as promoting the event around campus and working to generally publicize Greek Week. She is fully in charge of the Tailgate Grill off and Bakeoff.

The Grill off and Bakeoff is a food competition. Sororities will make baked goods, and fraternities will make grilled foods. Three judges from the Boys and Girls Club will judge each concoction. Everyone who attends may purchase a ticket, which allows him or her to try each dish, as well as vote in the Popular Vote competition. Proceeds will benefit the Boys and Girls Club.

Quarter Wars is also a new event that anyone, Greek or Independent can participate in.

It consists of five bins located on tables in the Trojan Center on Wednesday and Thursday of Greek Week.

Each team has their own bin and the team with the most money wins Quarter Wars.

Quarters, cash and checks count as positive money where dimes and nickels are negative.

Rolled quarters count as double their amount and pennies are prohibited.

The Greek Games are held the last day of Greek Week and include the competitions such as the wheel barrel race, egg toss, three-legged race, plank walk, a mystery game, football toss, tug of war and over/under.

“I am looking forward to the team aspect of the competition,” Kitto said. “We deliberately made more team competitions to enforce the team aspect. In the past, we felt as though the team was more of a title, rather than a way to meet people in other organizations and work towards a common goal. Now that the team competitions have increased from just Penny Wars (now Quarter Wars), teams must work together in the Overtime Challenge, Progressive Dinner, and Quarter Wars to be successful and earn a win. I look forward to hearing about teams working together to win various competitions, and look forward to actually seeing the success come together in terms of money raised, and how teams place throughout the week.”